Grey & Thomas's Fountain of Knowledge

[Chris Nagel]

The fear is only in the anticipation. You are afraid now and that is normal, especially in somebody starting late. That's why most fighters start young: kids are stupid and fearless. But even then, and this tends to be real true among guys that act very tough, that fear- knowing on Monday that you spar (or fight) such-and-such on Thursday chases lots of guys out of the gym.
I never tell anybody not to box so take this in that light: Find a gym that has sparring, even if its a "white-collar" type gym and get in shape. Learn the punches, put your work in, and stand at ringside and watch other guys spar (this is where a "fighting" gym is better- you see it for real). Get close so you get a real feel for it. If that doesn't make you want to get in there and try your hand, then you ain't cut out for this and that's that. No shame in it because it isn't for everybody, and at least you got into condition. But, most likely, after you've put in several weeks on the bags and jumping rope, it'll pull you in and you'll have to give it a try.
If you do, you'll get it, but you'll have your chances to return the favor, and, at the end of the day, you'll have answered questions about yourself you haven't been able to answer elsewhere. That's worth a couple punches in the mouth and a nosebleed. Any day.
Good Luck.

Sadly, there are far too many gymsyou could end up in where there'd be no difference in whether or not you were taken seriously.
There are many gyms that operate as health-club boxing type gyms for the bulk of the time, to pay the bills. So they would take you seriously- way to seriously for what is an aerobics class.
To be taken seriously in a "fight" gym you have to be serious; not acting like some movie clown but working during your work out and not just doing the routine. Work hard physically and mentally and you'll be ahead of the game.

When you are just starting walk a very brisk mile and build from there. A good goal- realistic, doable and sufficient- is a good three mile run three times or four times per week. When preparing for a fight you sharpen your wind. For example you have a 4 round bout upcoming. So you start your timer and alternately run and sprint for 3 minutes. Then walk at a good pace for a minute. Repeat. (i neglected to add "jog"-run, sprint jog -at a reasonable pace)Run four rounds daily.

Start a roadwork program. I've always thought that the long early morning runs are at least as much to instill discipline as anything else. Really three miles is plenty, especially if you walk a lot. Ray Arcel used a program to sharpen the wind which was very similar to this; walk a very brisk half mile, jog a brisk mile, then sprint a half mile, then walk, etc... Work on your technique- especially punching-wise. Box in front of a mirror and make sure your hands are up, that you aren't tipping off your punches, etc.. All the good fighters are counter punchers, even the aggressive types that force the action. The whole idea of it all is this; through your actions to make him throw a particular punch at a particular time so you can counter .

In the old days they used to fight lots and lots: A sample from the record of HoF member Fritzie Zivic, from 1938. He fought on the following dates; 1/1, 2/14, 3/7, 3/21, 4/12, 5/29, 6/13, 6/20, 7/9, 7/12, 8/2, 8/12, 8/22, 8/26, ...you get the idea. They learned their trade, got hit less, and didn't come out gunning for the KO every instant. You box, take your time...and get better at boxing. It has ups and downs; personally, I'd fight every day which isn't wise ... Starting out, every 60 days is probably good, gives you time to learn new things between fights.

Could I earn my way back into good graces with a couple combinations that you might find worthwhile?
Jack Dempsey made these famous in the 20s, and both are based off of slipping the opponent"s jab. The first is the "inside triple": to begin slip inside the opponent's jab (so it goes over your right shoulder; put weight on left leg , swing right side forward exactly like throwing a right)with a straight right to the heart. Step sideways w/rght foot, bringing it up even w/the left; at the same time shift the weight over the right leg :this step gives you more power, and if you stay low shifting the wght to rght leg will carry you under the left lead and outside of it as you hook to the solar plexus. The body is then straightened , weight shifted to the left leg and cross the right to the opponents chin. The action here has to be fast and continuous, so I would suggest starting slow and feeling the weight shifts because once you find those its easy.
"Outside Triple"; begin by slipping outside his jab and hooking the left to the stomach ( the way to slip outside is to throw a left hook-this one happens to be a touch wide and to the belly.) Weight should be on the right leg so step in and to the left with the left foot, the weight transfer carrying your body under the lead as you hook the right to the heart. From here straighten the body lifting the left (which should've been carried high to protect you head from his right) (don't need to draw it back or swing your arm , just wght to rght leg torque hips) to his chin. Again the movement must be fast and don't forget to practice getting out after you punch- don't just walk or stop or you'll do it in real.

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[Chris Nagel]

advice

Lets see; yes you could turn pro. You could, tomorrow find somebody some where that would feed you to a lion for a dollar. Bt no, 17 isn't too old to start, though its getting there. Robot-like on your feet? Try pushing with your back foot like in fencing; watch fencers and how they move. Look, you find your stance and it should be where your balance etc is maximized; so keep your feet there no matyter where or when or how far you move. As far as slipping punches...when pracicing always practice with the counter punch otherwise why bother? Also, always move in behind the slip and counter otherwise why bother? When you slip keep one thing in mind; the moves you make are the exact same as a particular punch. Slipping a jab to the inside (over your right shoulder) is throwing a straight right. Over the other shoulder is a left hook. You slip on your feet; you move your head with your feet. Otherwise you will not be able to punch. Twisting and leaning is asinine when you can shift the weight on your feet avoid the punch and counter hard at any point. To the guy that was 5'6" and wanting to get ripped to fight HWs; constantly coming forward, straight into the guns, and having no other choice is a tough row to hoe. You could be an amazing wizard of defense but you will get hit and hurt a lot every fight because you have to constantly press in and stay in range. I read once that Marciano often had to work to get his mind ready to fight and win, knowing that he was going to be walking into a tremendous amount of damage

[Chris Nagel]

No Emotion:

I read once that the thing that kept Jack Sharkey- whom Ray Arcel called the best pure boxer he'd ever seen at heavyweight- from being a truly great fighter was emotion. He was too emotional, while great fighters operate in the eye of the hurricane. No emotion. I've always been a big believer in this concept.
The first round is the first stone of what you are trying to build, and I know that sounds very trite. Most, if not all, say to go out and land the first punch. For me, unless there is a big skill difference, I'd almost rather get hit the first punch. Keeps me from getting complacent, but that's just me. In that opening round, early, its good to clinch with your opponent, to feel their strength and to see how interested they are in working inside and how good they might be at it. Catch his jab in your glove to see how hard he's popping his punches. Feint a lot to feel out his reactions to your jab, to the idea of you going to his body, and so on. You don't want to throw punches just to throw them because that lets him see your reach and to begin to time you. You want to be just out of range of his punches so that you don't give away any of your defensive and counter ideas.
Watch Ricardo Lopez. He was a great 1st round fighter. But the important thing is that emotion has no place in it. You get hit, don't get mad. Figure out why you got hit and what to do about it. Save the hostility for the appropriate time.

[Chris Nagel]

Joe on training.

I'm very old fashioned in my views but as soon as I see a fighter, trained by modern methods and with the modern cluster of "specialists" in his camp, that can fight 15 like they used to I'll change my views.
Diet...Lord knows I'm clueless here but I know this. The best conditioned, strongest fighters I've ever seen were poor and poor people eat rice and beans. My experience mostly refers to fighters from Mexico- that is who I grew up watching and reading about- and rice and beans is a staple of the diet there. Emanuel Steward says the same thing; he says he cooks his fighters collard greens, beans and chicken. Jackie McCoy, the great trainer, called beans and rice "earth food" and swore that they made for strong fighters.
Breathing is a curious subject...Lots of fighters forget to breath, especially when they get excited, like in the middle of an exchange or when things are going very well or very badly. This is often an ignored subject but here is what I think, and I learned this from a 69 year old Australian opera singer. She was very scrappy despite being 4' 11" and weighing maybe 98 pounds. (google Elizabeth Sabine).
You breathe through your lungs. Breathe in short gulps of air; the most common way of running out of breath is not from lacking air but from having too much. If you breathe deeply but don't use up and exhale that breath, then your lungs get clogged with "bad air" and you can no longer take full breaths. So take short breaths and exhale fully- like when you punch for instance and don't forget to breathe. Doing this, you can keep your abdomen tight- so body punches don't knock the wind out of you- while moving and breathing easily.
The last reason I think you, like many others on this site, may lack stamina, is that you train to much. Look, the early morning 4 miles of roadwork is as much to build discipline as any thing else. Rocky Marciano didn't run millions of miles but he walked every place he went. Running- alternating sprints, jogging and brisk walking- is to sharpen your wind. You should train every day and not just to prepare for a fight. Stretch in the morning every morning. Run-as explained above- three times a week, or on days you don't spar. Don't jump rope on days when you run or spar- it is over using the legs. When training to fight 4 rounds, train to fight 4, not 10 or your body will not peak properly.
See, training for a fight is not something you begin to do when you learn about a fight. It is something you begin to do the day you begin boxing. A good, hard, sharp hour to 90 minutes a day is fine. Working 6-8 hours a day is foolish. And just get me started on cross training!

[Chris Nagel]

Tom on boxing stance

There are tons of stances out there. I am of the opinion that there is only one correct stance and that all other stances are wrong. But this is my line of thinking and I don't expect to turn anybody over. Its up to you. The usual stance that gets pinned as the standard (at least these days) is the standing squared up with your gloves up to your temples. At first glance this stance seems perfect. Your head is well covered up as is the body. You're like some walking fortress it seems. So people take to it thinking they have all the bases covered and they are good to go. Has some limitations though. For one, standing like that you sort of hinder yourself. Your gloves don't need to be tight to the face as though you were blocking. They only need to be there when you actually are blocking! Why hold them up as though to block when the need to block is not present? This is wasteful and it commits your hands to doing a job where they otherwise could (and to my mind, should) be doing something more effective. Like throwing a crisp rising jab. All the great jabs of the sport from Loughran to Tunney to Moore and Burley were rising jabs -- and you cant throw a rising jab if your left hand is up at your head. The jab is so cirtical in my opinion because it lets you control distance and allows you to set up your punches. Standing squared up also affects how well you can jab. If you jab from a squared up stance you jab short. If you jab from a squared up stance and turn the body so as to get more length to your jab you end up tipping off your jab aswell as taking longer to get the punch off as more movements are being involved. try it for yourself and see. If you jab from an almost sideways stance you get much more length on your jab, throw it from the hip so that it will be a hard rising jab, and you tip it off less because the movement is less involved. it also ensures [standing nearly sideways] that your hip and shoulder are in front of your head. This allows for you to use the shoulder roll. Something that would be impossible with your hands to your ears and squared up. Standing hip and shoulder in front also allows you to lean with your upper body. so that you can lean just away or under from jabs left hooks and right hands. In other words it lets you control distance -- you can make your opponent's punches end up being just short of landing, thereby forcing him to commit more on his punches. Watch James Toney you will see this.



Ultimately, standing nearly sideways with the lead hand low allows much more. It is very subtle in this way ad at first glance the common eye will not see this. Every man has his own unique ways about his stance but to my mind the only correct stance looks very much like this:




That is Tommy Loughran. I assure you, if Tommy did it, there was good reason behind it. He was one of the most calculating and cunning fighters to live and would set you up and knock you dead no lie. Anyway, I think this stance is the right one. All the true greats in the history of the sport fought out of a similar stance From Carpantier to Floyd Mayweather believe it or not.

I leave it up to you.

[Chris Nagel]

More on stance:

Donny I know how you feel. The old style is just not taught by anyone. Very hard to find anything to give you an idea of how to fight this way.

I think ultimately the thing to remember about the old style of fighting is that its a product of the bareknuckle/early glove era. Its more of a set of attitudes than it is anything really. Long rounds and barely padded gloves create interesting fighters and fighting styles. You can imagine how drastically fighters today would have to change their styles to adapt and survive those conditions. For one thing being hit anywhere hurts enough already but when you're being hit with a 5oz glove one mistake could be the last. Not only that but gloves this small could barely cover up enough of the head for blocking or offer the padding necessary to absorb the impact of punches. Being punched on your arms by something that was essentially a thinly padded fist would also be very painful. This is one of the primary differences between today's fighter and the fighters from back then. Today fighters stand still and absorb punches on their arms and gloves but in the early days of fighting the first defense came from using distance with blocking used only as a last resort. Two very different philosophies. Basically - and you will see this in the stances of fighters from the 20's/30's - the body was positioned in such a way to maximize its ability to slip and roll away from punches. In essence, to be able to create distance from punches instead of standing there and absorbing them.

This is why you will see them standing at a slant and leaning slightly down and away from their opponents with their hands lowered. Being slanted provides a much smaller target area for your opponent. Leaning slightly down and away enhances distance and makes it easier to get behind and underneath your shoulder. Carrying the hands low enhances your vision and allows the upper body to move freely and with greater ease (since your arms aren't glued to you).

Everything there is dedicated to making the fighter hard to land punches on whereas today the popular idea is to soak up the punches on your arms and gloves instead of preventing them from landing on you completely.


Anyway thats one of the big things and also one of the first things to consider if you're interested in the older styles. There are more things like how that stance relates to punching and the way this stance allows you to progressively pull your opponent's punches closer/make him reach and therefore vulnerable to counters.

[Chris Nagel]

Tom on the Shoulder Roll:

I've noticed that its difficult for some guys to roll not because of the actual movement it takes to do it but because they arent in a stance suited for doing it best in the first place. For me it always worked smoothly when had my hip in front almost totally sideways like burley (the only guy ive ever seen stand so sideways) and so that i wwas leaning just a bit on my back foot so that my front (left) shoulder was slightly higher than then my right. Very old school stance you'll see it alot in the 20's, 30's fighters. This makes me naturally hard to hit with rights which was always nice. Its very natural to just roll away from them since, from that stance, you are already very hard to reach with a right (literally they have to REACH) and because im so sideways the shoulder can be turned in front of the face almost instantly. Also the right uppercut counter after rolling comes off extremely smooth from this stance. Its the most natural thing to see that counter after rolling the shoulder in such a fashion.

But you see the real sceret to the shoulder roll is not in blocking punches with your shoulder. See its really preformed more like a slip than a block. where youre rolling away from the right hand and not just eating it on your shoulder. The shoulder coming in front of the face is actually just a sort of a side effect of the rolling away movement and not the primary thing.

I'm starting to see more fighters trying to use the shoulder roll. andre berto and jean pascal spring to mind. They're pretty ineffective to me though because they stand straight up in the air like a stick and try to forcibly push their shoulder up to cover the head. They end up just eating the punch because this forces them to block and dissallows the rolling away motion so critical to the shoulder roll. because they have no rolling away motion, the right uppercut which comes off of the shoulder roll becomes difficult for them to throw and thus pretty ineffective.